The Essential
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: The essential is invisible to the eyes. It's Gaara's turn to show Naruto the way back. [GaaraNaruto, midly implied NarutoSakura, spoilers up to manga ep 298.]


**Small note:** I wrote this in Spanish before Sasuke appeared in the manga, and then started to translate it but, due to school and stuff I was unable to finish it until now, so… it's slightly AU. Or, who knows, might happen if Naruto does lose it.

**The Essential.**

_"It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly.  
What is essential is invisible to the eye."  
"The Little Prince", Antoine de Saint Exupéry._

Gaara raised a hand to interrupt Sakura's words when the Kyuubi's chakra drowned his senses; heavy, angry and violent. Even with the small part of him that remained developed after losing Shukaku, everything within half a mile radius was so full of the fox's energy that it almost made him want to run away.

"How long has he been like this?" he asked, making notes of where the seals started, making calculations.

"Two weeks." And, as if admitting that out loud was too much to bear, suddenly exhaustion was over Sakura's face. "I... I'm to bother you with this, but... I couldn't think of anyone else..." and, with her voice, it was clear that the chuunin's strength, both physical and mental, were at its limit.

"What about the seals?"

"Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, Tsunade-sama, Jiraiya-sama, Yamato-sensei and myself are the bases."

"Can I be included?"

Sakura doubted a moment before she nodded. "It might take a couple of days..."

Gaara kept looking to the front. Even though the forest were Naruto had been 'locked' inside was too think to allow him a clear picture of the ninja, his chakra informed him enough. Almost any trace of Naruto had been consumed by the Kyuubi's anger; he could feel but a breath of the noisy ninja whom he owed so much.

"As soon as possible. I also have to take care of some things."

"You want _what?_" You'd think he was being unreasonable. Arms tightly crossed, Gaara kept on looking towards his siblings. Kankur hadn't said a thing yet, mouth hanging open, while Temari seemed ready to beat sense into him with her fan.

He hoped she wouldn't: even if he still could control sand (obviously much less than before, but he kept practicing) he didn't control it to avoid physical damage anymore... and Temari's fan was certainly heavy.

"I'm naming you two my replacements as Kazekage while I'm gone. I'm staying in Konohagure until Naruto comes back."

"Then I _did_ hear what I thought. Huh." Kankuro shook his head, the same look Temari had covering his face. "Did sand get inside your brain!"

Gaara just frowned, even though it no longer scared his siblings.

"It's not that we don't want to help Naruto, Gaara." Temari immediately answered. "We're more than ready to send nins to search for more seals; we will find a way to bring him back. We're not talking about abandoning him, but you can't risk yourself like this, you're the-"

"Kazekage. I'm not making a suggestion." Gaara said finally, turning to look towards his siblings. "I owe him."

Kankuro and Temari turned to see each other. Gaara tried to not feel offended by the fact his older siblings were worried about him; it was something that, he had learned, came from being a family... but there was also the part in which part of the worry was due to the fact that his fight level had considerably dropped out.

If when he had been at his best with Shukaku merged with him, he had been unable to defeat Naruto without the Kyuubi, he knew there was no way in which he could survive Kyuubi without Naruto.

And still, he wasn't going to leave him.

"What are you thinking, Gaara?" Kankuro asked, arms crossed, the marks on his face making the gesture seem more menacing.

"I'll know when I see him." He replied calmly, leaving the room the Hokage had given them to use when he felt the beginnings of Sakura's chakra getting close.

There was barely a hint of discomfort when his chakra and blood joined the other seals, but Gaara couldn't stop himself from closing his eyes when, after that, he heard Naruto's pained howl.

"After this, would I be able to take off the perimeter?"

"Yeah." Jiraiya answered, frowning while he saw him, allowing Sakura to close up his wound. "But if you know what's better for you, you won't."

"I wasn't thinking on doing it." Not yet, at least. Gaara also gave Sakura his arm for it to be healed. With Naruto's actual state of conscience, the least he should do was get near him smelling of blood. He could remember all too well Shukaku's voice asking for food and he didn't want to imagine how it should be for Naruto, having the strongest Bijuu trying to break free.

"What's your plan, Gaara?" Sakura asked, frowning. Naruto's sensei, Kakashi, was also looking at him, Sharingan fixated on him. Gaara knew right then that, if he said to them that human organs were needed, they'd be more than capable than opening their own stomachs with their kunai.

"I need to be alone with him."

"What? That's the plan?"

"You're more recognizable. I won't be so much... and, if I am, it'd be like another Jinchuriki." Gaara explained calmly, even if he knew that there were more chances that it would be the other way around. He knew well enough that none of the Bijuu were stupid. He was just hoping that it was a Naruto-with-increased-animal-instincst rather than a full blown Kyuubi.

"But...!" Sakura interrupted her own objections, looking at him.

Gaara also turned to look at the girl. There, almost tangible, was the bond that linked her to Naruto, running much deeper than his own.

Contrary of what he would've expected, there was only a mild feeling of respect from his part... and sadness. He doubted he had that kind of bond with anyone. 

"Trust me." he asked finally, talking directly to the girl, who was the one who had more to loose in this situation. Uchiha was still absent, and he could only imagine what the girl felt when she was on the bridge of losing her last teammate. Sakura looked at him for a few moments before she nodded just once, the small moment of desperation she had shown completely concealed. 

"Okay."

The first three days guarding Naruto went pretty much in the same way. Gaara, who still wasn't used to sleep everyday, spent those three days almost without moving from his place, sitting a few feet apart from the protecting seal that was stopping Naruto from becoming the Kyuubi and also protected the nearby villages. He stayed completely unmoving, legs crossed and hands over his knees, blue eyes following the movements that the fox-person did inside the chakra-formed-jail.

The first day, Naruto growled, throwing himself against the cage, ignoring the damage he took, the barely controlled chakra of the Kyuubi mangling the ninja's body, eyes yellow and dilated, all the nervous energy concentrated to attack. The second day, when Naruto woke up and noticed he was there he growled again, but this time he didn't try to attack him, instead not taking his eyes from him while the Jinchuriki stalked between the limits of his prison. The third day, Naruto hadn't move, nose twitching to get his smell, giving what Gaara almost thought was a human gesture of acknowledgment.

Just then Gaara did stood up and got a few steps closer.

It took two weeks for Gaara to be able to be within a foot from Naruto, who also had stopped growling when he saw him. Even when he woke up or came from hunting with food for them, Gaara almost thought he looked happy.

It was also of some comfort the fact that in just two weeks the killer chakra from the Kyuubi had withdrawn, taking shelter again. Naruto's own chakra still was too wild, a hurricane that was still threatening to attack at any moment now, but it also had the usual orange hints that he could recognize; Gaara now was able to feel the confusion, fear and loneliness the ninja was feeling.

Sakura had told him, when he had arrived, that Naruto had ended up like this after he had had a confrontation with Uchiha. Gaara forced himself to keep his anger and disgust from being felt; the least he wanted was the advance he had made on reaching Naruto would be disrupted by something like that.

One day, when he woke up after falling asleep in front of Naruto's cage, he found himself staring to a pair of curious golden eyes, Naruto also laying down on the floor, just the chakra keeping them apart. After almost a month of being in that animalized state, Naruto's body was slowly wasting away. Even though the wounds he got healed, they left scars upon Naruto's skin. Dried blood and dirt stuck to his skin and hair, and he had spent so much chakra to heal that he had lost weight.

Carefully, making sure Naruto could see every movement he did, Gaara drew some symbols on the floor and, ever so slowly, he was able to get a hand inside the cage.

Naruto's nose wrinkled as he smelled his hand. There was the faint feeling of accomplishment when he was able to touch the Jinchuriki's face and Naruto's eyes closed, his breathing deep and calm. After two weeks watching him like that, it gave him some hope to notice Naruto behaving like this.

"Do you know me?" he asked softly, threading his fingers through Naruto's coarse hair, carefully disentangling some dried mood and leaves from it. Naruto didn't answer, but his breathing became more and more slow – he was falling asleep, letting Gaara pet him. Gaara's stare softened. "You have to come back, Naruto."

The only answer he got was the fact that even with the animal's distrust, he was allowed to keep touching Naruto's face, but that was more than enough. He was patient.

Suddenly, he was in someplace dark. It was the kind of night with no moon or stars where, without the aid of the chakra that all living beings leave and without the wind would've made a shinobi had troubles moving… and wherever he was, Gaara was unable to hear or feel anything.

He closed his eyes, trying to recognize where he was, what was happening. Then, just as suddenly, there was a small flicker of chakra, almost like a crunch. He kept his eyes closed as he let that small sound to guide him… until he found out a small kid, hair the color of wheat and a look in his eyes that was half pain and half anger, looking at nothing in specific, almost like an animal.

It was so painfully familiar that for a moment Gaara expected his usual headache, not just the faint hollowness in his chest.

"Naruto." He said softly, as to not startle the small kid. The boy was holding unto his knees, rocking slightly, but just as Gaara was going to try and reach for him, an orange chakra shield appared around him, almost burning his hand. Gaara looked around. The Kyuubi should be around here, but he couldn't feel its presence. "Naruto, it's Gaara."

Naruto just closed his eyes, still rocking. The chakra around him started growing, and it was then that Gaara started to feel the Kyuubi's presence.

"You have to go out of here." Gaara told him again, trying to make with his own chakra a vortex wide enough to be able to reach Naruto directly. "There are people worrying about you."

"… no one acknowledge me…" the boy's voice sounded, at the same time, infinitely angry and sad; Gaara wondered what would've happened to him if Naruto had rejected that mutual acknowledgment between them.

"There's no one who knows you that would be able to betray that acknowledgment." He said slowly, unable to hide a small wince as the strong chakra seemed to cut into him. "It's not like you to give up."

There was a small sob. Gaara was surprised when the chakra shield started to break, his fingers getting in.

"There are some bonds that are unbreakable." Gaara said in the same soft voice when he was able to touch the kid's head, surprised when this Naruto reached and hugged him, sobbing against his chest, but he put an arm around the boy's body, carefully. "As long as we share them… they'll be there."

It was somewhat strange to think that the persecution sounds inside one of the rooms in the Konoha hospital were welcome, or perhaps that was just Gaara while he waited outside said room, listening something getting hit and feet running away.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled, the happiness in her voice barely covered by annoyance. "You need to rest!"

"But that's not food, Sakura-chan!" Naruto complained in a voice loud enough to be heard through all the hospital. "I want ramen!"

He decided that it was a good moment to get in, but he couldn't avoid the slight movement that in everyone else would've mean a raised eyebrow when he found out Sakura straddling Naruto, holding unto his shoulders.

It was a good thing that Kankuro hadn't gone with him. He could've injured himself by laughing.

"Gaara!" Naruto grinned, and only then Sakura moved away, her face as red as her clothes. "You wanna eat? Sakura-chan, we need ramen!"

"You…"

"I'm going back to Suna." He interrupted before he was a direct witness of another fight. Naruto was still exhausted after all the chakra he had used, and now that the seal was back inside the ninja, Konoha would, at least, have more time to try and find something more resistant, or at least, to help Naruto train into controlling the Kyuubi better. If there was someone who'd be able to do that, he was sure it was going to be Naruto. Even when they both had woken up in the forest, it had been a barely conscious Naruto the one to control most of the people reaction.

"So soon?"

"Idiot, Gaara-sama has been out of Sunagakure over a month!" after fixing her teammate with a glare that Temari would've approved off, Sakura smiled at him, her face full of gratitude. "I don't know how to thank you…"

"There's no need." Gaara said, turning towards Naruto. He was also smiling, but there was a shadow of unerstanding in his eyes. He wasn't sure how much Naruto remembered, but that, however, wasn't necessary either. Gaara saw Naruto reach his hands towards him and, after a few seconds, he did the same.

The only problem he was probably going to have after having spend so much time with Naruto, even in that animalized state, it was that Gaara thought that he was perhaps going to miss him, if only a bit.

"Now I owe you one." Naruto said, scratching the back of his neck.

Gaara shook his head slightly, a soft look over his face that was almost a smile.

"You don't."


End file.
